[lit-ideas] Re: Our Superficial Scholars

From: Torgeir Fjeld <torgeir_fjeld@xxxxxxxx>

To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2011 16:53:09 +0000 (GMT)

John wrote,
> I do agree. I am just concerned that those who dislike
> discussion of
> outcomes are increasingly finding themselves preaching to a
> like-minded
> choir instead of persuading those who, at the end of the
> day, wind up paying
> the piper.
>
Whenever I meet someone who takes the effort to argue against outcomes based
education I am happy and a tad bit surprised as those who take that position
are threatened with extinction. No offense, John, but arguing /for/ OBE is
common and simple. Wisdom is not a commodity to be traded like sugar or
automobiles.
-tor
> On Thu, Jan 27, 2011 at 6:14 AM, Torgeir Fjeld <torgeir_fjeld@xxxxxxxx>wrote:
>
> > Robert Paul wrote:
> >
> > John McCreery:
> > > > Democratizing the
> humanities
> > > and, in effect, adopting the
> > > > McDonald's slogan,
> "We do it
> > > all for you" has predictably
> > > > destroyed the luxury
> cachet
> > > the humanities once enjoyed. And
> > > > claiming to teach
> critical
> > > thinking in big lecture classes with
> > > > shrinking reading
> and writing
> > > assignments isn't going to rebuild
> > > > the brand.
> > > >
> > > The recent, usually ideological, fascination
> with
> > > 'outcomes,' in higher
> > > education, has as a subtext, the question,
> 'What's the good
> > > of it?'
> > > where the good of it is parsed in terms of what
> graduates
> > > of which
> > > schools and departments can achieve as 'useful'
> members of
> > > an
> > > industrialized society. In this setting, the
> humanities
> > > don't stand a
> > > chance; and if someone were to argue that
> studying the
> > > humanities
> > > (any of them) could clearly be shown to have such
> a
> > > purpose, the very
> > > idea of studying them would be lost.
> >
> > As Bourdieu would have it, conceiving of education
> largely or solely in
> > terms of outcomes is to confuse the opus operatum --
> the finished product --
> > with the modus operandi -- the way in which the
> production is organized.
> > Outcomes based education is measurable and
> quantifiable while schooling that
> > emphasizes process over product stands at a
> disadvantage in the current
> > educational nexus. The (somewhat queer) idea that the
> product of education
> > is or should be mass manufactured clones prepared to
> fulfill a set of tasks
> > necessary to reproduce an increasingly crisis stricken
> economic system is
> > wrong but sadly dominant -- i.e. ideological.
> >
> > -tor
> > Longstreet Institute of Higher Learning
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